Taming the chika

Netnet Camomot

COLUMNIZING depends on the mood. In other words, kung puede imudmud ang nawong sa phone’s Notes, hala sige, now na.

There are times when the writing is done up to the last three seconds and you feel like a basketball player who now has to make a three-point shot to help your team win.

And then, last Saturday, there I was, writing about Manny Pacquiao’s talk for the Rotarians in Cagayan de Oro. That talk was last Friday but I only noticed I kept writing it as Saturday by the time I was already reviewing the column I emailed to our EIC Herbie Gomez. Yes, emailed. As in go to “Sent” box, look for the sent email, and review it again there. That’s after editing it in the phone’s “Notes” where I now feel the writing flows more freely compared to the laptop and tablet.

Since I was writing it on the Saturday after the talk, my minute brain somehow was also stuck there, refusing to return to the previous day. How about that for moving forward, eh? If only I could do the same for my life, to move forward without ever drowning again in the hurt and pain and tears of the past’s unnecessary emotional chuvaness. Hmmm. Talk of blue, sans the Polo.

There are times when the blues are way too much to handle, so I try to drown the emo with my good old ever reliable chocolates and sweets, like what happened last Saturday night, prompting another barrage of texts to the family’s health coach whose advice was for me to drink aloe. Hay naku. Aloe galore. If only that could reverse the emo part, too. But all it could tame was the sugar that was by then rushing through my veins. Or blood. Whatever.

And all these while working around a 1-to-5 pm blackout sked which, despite the Cepalco warning that was posted on Facebook, still managed to surprise me the moment the lights went pfft: Brownout! That was minutes after I emailed the “Polo Blue” column to Herbie, and my phone’s battery was already on red alert. After all these months of forgetting to buy a power bank–because I feel there are other more important things to buy, like chocolate–I had to survive with the red-alert phone till 5 pm. But there were people to text and call, making the battery’s red alert almost vanish to nothingness.

Still, I’m counting the months, weeks and days till June 2016 when the blackouts will finally be over? Hmmm, nope, not that. I’m referring to this commitment I said yes to. And, nope, I’m not a Pinoy politician whose term will end on June 30. Obviously. Since a Pinoy politician whose term will end won’t be celebrating. Instead, he will wallow in self-pity, so blue, sans the Polo, always wondering where he went wrong in his fun run towards city hall, the provincial capitol, Congress, Senate, or Malacanang.

No one remembers the second prize winner, nor the vice mayor, vice governor, the guy with the second largest number of votes. The only place that matters is the one at the top. Your name will be there forever as the grand prize winner, the mayor, governor, congressman, senator, president. Do you even remember who was the vice of former President Erap Estrada? Wine, women and pong? Pong as in mahjong.

But the question is not what his vice was, but who was his vice. Well, how could we forget that vice, for she’s now detained in a hospital, with an albatross around her neck. All those cases filed against her, they’re definitely that albatross, right?

The Comelec guy, who starred in her “Hello, Garci” phone call, is sometimes here in Cagayan de Oro. Saw him once in a resto while he was seriously conferring with a group of Pinoys from Mindanao. I think that was a few days before the  filing of Certificates of Candidacy. The seriousness of their talk was enough to inspire my minute brain to go, Oh no, not another hello!

“Hello, it’s me/I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to meet/To go over everything/They say that time’s supposed to heal ya.” No, that’s not former Vice President and President GMA. That’s Adele’s “Hello,” a song that has many versions now, including a “duet” with Lionel Richie whose “Hello” song says, “Hello!/Is it me you’re looking… for?”

Hello is a word that many political candidates in Pinas are now saying to strangers whose votes are needed for victory in the May 2016 political fun run. If it’s not Hello, it could be Hi, or Here’s P1,000, please vote for me.

On Monday night, however, there was this guy who didn’t even care to say Hello or Hi. Shy? Hmmm. He’s running for a seat in the CDO City Council, it’s his first time, and yet he already acted like as if he’s doesn’t need our votes. Still, let’s go back to our first suspicion: he’s shy, end of story.

The seasoned politician with him, however, was his exact opposite. Already a winner in previous elections, he’s again running for the highest post in the city next year. Friendly as usual, he was making beso-beso with the women there, and shaking the hands of the men. There was no vote-for-me vibes in the beso and hand-shaking, though, for that’s simply his natural self, and on Monday night, he was probably relieved he’s still occupying the highest seat in the city after the violet vice mayor’s oath-taking as the new city mayor.

A Cagayanon did say he’s happy now that CDO has two mayors because that somehow encouraged the traffic lights to work again. I have no idea what’s the connection there, if indeed the two mayors have made that possible, but I guess desperate times call for any teeny weeny bit of positivity, and the hardworking traffic lights are his go-to happy thought for now.

But I told him, Nope, not two mayors. There’s only one mayor. He’s the one and only. Unless I’ve been hibernating in Siberia and somehow missed the updates on that.

At least the city now has Christmas lights, in the form of the blinking red-yellow-green traffic lights at intersections. Hehe.

But you have to wonder why some people want our one and only mayor outta there. And I guess I saw the answer on Monday night again. There’s this couple whose reputation has been tarnished due to their close connections with the mayor. There’s even chika that the couple has gained hundreds of millions of pesos through real estate sales. Wow! Sarap ng buhay! Or should we switch to the mayor’s favorite expression: Yehey!

It’s good to gain financial stability in less than three years–counted from July 1, 2013 up to the present–but to have some negative chika attached to it is, well, not nice. Not nice for the couple, not nice for the city, and definitely not nice for the mayor. But since it’s chika, with the words allegedly, reportedly and supposedly, question marks hover above all their heads, including that of the city’s populace, wondering if this chika is merely a figment of the imagination of the mayor’s rivals and frenemies.

Now, why are we counting from July 1, 2013? Because that’s when the incumbent mayor began his reign as the city’s top guy. People who were having financial difficulties before that, and are now suddenly not having financial difficulties allegedly reportedly supposedly due to their closeness with the mayor will always raise the eyebrows of even the mayor’s other friends and supporters.

But at least that couple is friendly, also making beso-beso or shaking the hands of people they’re familiar with. Or are they doing this to lower the raised eyebrows aimed at them? And is being friendly their way of taming the chika?

Oh, well.